Offense
QB - KC (Smith has familiarity with his system after 4 games, Fitz has 1 week to prepare)
RB - KC (Charles gets the nod 'til CJ has a CJ-like game)
OL - Titans (Titans dominate here as they are better at every position)
TE - Titans (Walker is better then any of your backups though McGrath played well last week)
WR - Titans (Bowe is the best WR on both teams, but KC lacks depth thus edge Titans)

Defense
DL - TN (Poe and Casey are having great years, but Devito and Jackson < Morgan, Pito, Klug, Wimbley, Ayers).
LB - KC. Chiefs win this by a long shot. Hali and Houston are both forces, Houston is on fire. Jordan and Johnson can both ball. Fouku hasn't played well, but Ayers/ZB have shown flashes of brillance, but also make bonehead players time to time. Big nod to KC.
CB - TN. Verner is playing the best ball of any corner in the league, that simple and McCourty is also having a good year. Flowers not being 100% really hurts, as Duanta is washed up - still like Smith though
S - KC. Berry is a top-10 safety and Kendrick is legit also. Griffin is so up and down and Pollard in coverage is awful.

Special Teams
KC - McClusters return last week was SICK

KC = 5
TN = 5

I'd put the Chiefs as favorites to win this game, but not by much. Having Locker out is a huge loss, but Fitz has had success vs KC. Thing is, Titans are winning by controlling TOP and limiting turnovers, Fitz was known for throwing picks. CJ needs to have a big day, and he's yet to do that this year, can't rely on him. I'm still saying 20-17 Titans.

I am shocked at how absolutely confident in the Titans winning this weekend that this thread illustrates. I'm a Chief's fan and am a member of several Chief's chat-boards... believe me, I know what homers look like. Basically every single Titan fan response in this thread predicts a win. A couple of you have supplied a caveat or two, but for the most part, every single one of you think your Titans win this game. Surprising. Even the most ardent Chief fans I know openly admit that this is going to be a tough match-up - probably the toughest match-up for each team to date.

Before Locker went down I would have given the Chief's a 50/50 chance of winning as both of these teams are near mirror images of each other. With Fitzpatrick starting, I like the Chief's chances. Anything can happen and the Titans could still win - for sure, they're a tough team. That said, I subscribe to the theory that the best predictor (not a given) of a games outcome starts with who has the better QB. Anybody that openly says Fitzpatrick is better than Smith is related to Fitzpatrick.

The next thing to look at is the Defense. Both defenses are about as tough as they come, however, the Chiefs boast the #1 sacking team in the NFL, the #1 scoring defense in the NFL, the #1 rated defense in 3rd down percentage and have faced the following offensive weapons (not even going to mention the Jags for reason we all admit):
1) Michael Vick, Lesean McCoy, Brent Celek, DeSean Jackson, Riley Cooper and Jason Avant
2) Tony Romo, Demarco Murray, Jason Witten, Dez Bryant and Miles Austin
3) Eli Manning, Hakim Nicks, Victor Cruz

None of these teams are having good seasons (neither are the teams that the Broncos have played, yet they seem to get some respect - for good reason), but all of them boast more than capable if not potentially explosive offenses that were bested by this Chief's team.

On the flip-side, the Titans have played the Steelers (no running game and no WR's that scare anyone), the Texans (definately have the weapons), the Chargers (Phillip Rivers and Gates are bonefide superstars) and the Jets (please, a rookie QB and no offensive weapons worth mentioning). Other than a Texans team the Titans have played no power-packed offensive teams.

Bottom line, I think the stats and competition show the Chiefs to have the better defense between the two, though I admit it's as close as you can get at this point in the season.

I usually don't go much beyond the QB and Defense before I feel pretty good about the pick, but I'll continue a bit further here...

Running back - Charles and the Chiefs all the way. The Titans have the better O-line talent, but CJ hasn't looked the superstart part for a couple years now. I don't think he starts looking the part this weekend.

Finally, turnover probability. The Titans have not had a single turnover all year. Do any of you truly believe that is a sustainable statistic? You know that every team - no matter how good - will turn the ball over from time to time. The Chiefs showed they could overcome two turnovers last week to win the game. When statistical probabilities begin to right themselves and the Titans begin to turn the ball over (hello Fitzpatrick) can they continue to win? When will the Titans commit their first turnover of the season? With four-games with no turnovers, I'd say statistics will start to even things out about any game now - likely this weekend against one of the most take-away minded defenses in the NFL with 13-take-aways and 2 defensive scores in the first four games (compared to 9 total take-aways and two scores for the Titans). The Chiefs are taking the ball away an average of one more time per game than the Titans.

All in all, this is the NFL and anything can happen. If the Titans win this Sunday I will not be shocked in any way. However, given the information available as of today - I like the Chief's chances in this game.

Wishing the Titans the best of luck (excpet maybe this weekend) and a quick recovery to Jake.

TomahawkChop, that's one of our longstanding and respected members who tends to put up some massively long (thought very insightful) posts.

Obviously, the Chiefs can win Sunday. They're favored. Most of us are total homers because confidence is running high. We've seen this team do some things that hasn't happened in a long time. I'm sure many Chief fans feel the same way about their team.

It's going to be soggy Sunday. The team who takes care of the football best will probably win.

I hear ya, TitanJeff. Us Chief fans are feeling the same way. It's been far too long since we've been competitive. I'm loving that our two teams are becoming relevant again and do not believe it's a fluke in either case. Despite who wins and loses this week's game, the rest of the NFL will have to account for the Titans and Chiefs in 2013 (and hopefully beyond). Thanks for the compliment, by the way. My posts are normally quite short but knowing that there might be a faction here that automatically assigns me the label of "troll" I thought I'd give a bit more info.

I hope there is a good showing of Chiefs fans in Nashville, We always travel well which is awesome, I was there at Everbank week 1 against JAX and there were a ton of Chiefs fans in the stadium and hotel I stayed at. During the national anthem when they got to the part "and the home of the" you could hear all the Chief fans go CHIEFFFSSS!!!! lol

Good post Tomahawk...I am cautiously optimistic, which is like overly confident for most fans probably because I tend to be guarded and cynical. However, this game feels less of a win for me only because of Locker being out.

Watching the Chiefs in a couple games I felt like I was watching the Titans in many respects. I truly think this game is a toss up now. Going to be very wet and rainy. That may take the crowd down a notch which helps the Chiefs a bit.

I am expecting a close game that hinges on either a long field goal or special teams play....another one to drive me nuts.

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